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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on December 21, 2009 at 11:53am

Hi Allison. Over the past several years - it's been harder and harder to use # of phone calls as a measurable item. Before voicemail, etc. it was rather easy. But now many clients do not pick up the phone unless they recognize your number. And if you call 60 times w/o leaving a message - I'm sure they'll recognize your number! So it's a quandary we are all facing. Do we call 5 times - then leave a compelling message? Or leave a message the first time? Some never will leave a message. I can see valid points on either side of the issue. So really - using the number of phone calls is quite difficult (or at least considerably more so than a decade ago.)

What is very crucial is engaged time on the phone. Quite possibly your phone system can provide that data. 3 hours was always a target back in my agency days. Now - I'm sure you realize that's 3 hours with a variety of different/targeted people and clients. Not friends and family!

My personal metrics only begin once I have identified a match between a candidate and job order. I then track those introductions on through telephone interview - on site interview - offer extended - offer accepted - start date.

A good target is 1.5 to 2.0 Introductions should generate an initial meeting or phone interview between your client and candidate. From there - an average tech/engineering desk would be 4 - 5 Sendouts to 1 Placement. You should prepare/plan for 1 of 10-15 to be no starts after offer accepted.

Good luck Allison. Numbers are important and it's nice to see someone working on theirs!

Final thought: I would have as a goal for each recruiter to finish each and every day with one goal in mind: Have a candidate identified for presentation to your client the next day. This ends up giving you a goal of 5 introductions/week which would put you on track for 2.5 - 3 sendouts each week - and using my personal number - this would give you a realistic shot at 2 placements each month. If you can manage that from your recruiters - it would be fantastic!

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Permalink Reply by Allison Sherwood on December 21, 2009 at 11:59am

Thanks Jerry! I agree with your point regarding time on the phone versus number of calls. I'm trying to gauge activity required to generate a search (we do retained) and I'm getting stuck on developing a formula that states "this many calls" (or time on the phone) should equal "this many search proposals/presentations" should equal "this many retained searches". My boss does not have a background in search and is very metrics-driven so I'm needing to make this more detailed. Thoughts?

Jerry Albright said:

Hi Allison. Over the past several years - it's been harder and harder to use # of phone calls as a measurable item. Before voicemail, etc. it was rather easy. But now many clients do not pick up the phone unless they recognize your number. And if you call 60 times w/o leaving a message - I'm sure they'll recognize your number! So it's a quandary we are all facing. Do we call 5 times - then leave a compelling message? Or leave a message the first time? Some never will leave a message. I can see valid points on either side of the issue. So really - using the number of phone calls is quite difficult (or at least considerably more so than a decade ago.)

What is very crucial is engaged time on the phone. Quite possibly your phone system can provide that data. 3 hours was always a target back in my agency days. Now - I'm sure you realize that's 3 hours with a variety of different/targeted people and clients. Not friends and family!

My personal metrics only begin once I have identified a match between a candidate and job order. I then track those introductions on through telephone interview - on site interview - offer extended - offer accepted - start date.

A good target is 1.5 to 2.0 Introductions should generate an initial meeting or phone interview between your client and candidate. From there - an average tech/engineering desk would be 4 - 5 Sendouts to 1 Placement. You should prepare/plan for 1 of 10-15 to be no starts after offer accepted.

Good luck Allison. Numbers are important and it's nice to see someone working on theirs!

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on December 21, 2009 at 12:21pm

You're in the same boat as many. # of calls is no longer the same/constant indicator of what it once was. This is unusual for me - but I don't have an answer. It's the one part of this whole shift to using email, etc. to communicate that has thrown many of us into foreign territory.

Randomly blanketing the market with email is about the least productive thing you can do - but then again - so is dialing 50 or more calls each morning and again in the afternoon - if nobody is answering their phone any more.

I'll give it some thought and hopefully come up with something. Hopefully Craig Silverman will jump in. He's awesome!

Allison Sherwood said:

Thanks Jerry! I agree with your point regarding time on the phone versus number of calls. I'm trying to gauge activity required to generate a search (we do retained) and I'm getting stuck on developing a formula that states "this many calls" (or time on the phone) should equal "this many search proposals/presentations" should equal "this many retained searches". My boss does not have a background in search and is very metrics-driven so I'm needing to make this more detailed. Thoughts?

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